Important notes from presentation

• It is important for teachers to look at standards for all grade levels and not just their own. This way students will see the long term goals. It will make it easier to know what they have learned and what they need to learn to get to that final goal. This allows fluency in between grades because all of the teachers are working towards the same overall goal. These standards build upon each other, teachers need to understand how they work together
• Students need to be stretched in learning. We should not only teach materials that make them feel comfortable. Students should feel challenged. If we want students to reach a certain level by graduation then we need push them further. We should not only teach what they are going to understand easily. We should teach our students information that makes them go beyond their level of comfort. Stretching students abilities will lead to improvement.
• Characteristics of a challenging text. Complexity of ideas/content, match of text and reader prior knowledge, complexity of vocabulary, complexity of syntax, complexity of coherence, familiarity of genre demands, complexity of text organization, etc.

Question:

• If reading comprehensive strategies are so important then why were they not included as part of the common core?